Max, The Horny Wonder Dog

ax, a Golden Retriever with an intelligent reddish-blonde face, sat in front of me in Harold's living room. He stared, sad-eyed, raising his eyebrows up and down, waiting for my reaction. His lonely expression got to me, so I petted him. Max showed his appreciation by hugging my leg and dancing with it.

"Max!" Harold moved in quickly, for a 55 year old man, and swatted him. Max hung his head in shame and skulked over to the corner of the room. Our wives came in and joined us.

Max waited the appropriate punishment time in the corner - ninety seconds - and slowly crept back over to the couch where my wife and I were seated. He stared at my wife, and wiggled his eyebrows at her. She smiled back and petted him.

"Honey, I don't think you should -"

Too late. Max grabbed her leg with his paws and began doing the mambo.

"Max! Damn it!" Harold pulled him away and swatted him again. Max crawled back to the corner on all fours, whimpering.

"I'm sorry." Harold shook his head, sighed, and then threw an angry stare at Max. "Nancy dumped him on us because her new landlord doesn't allow pets."

"It's okay." My wife ran her hand along the foot-long run. "These stockings were old and ready to be thrown out anyway."

Harold looked at his wife, Pearl. "He needs something to do with his energy. It's just the two of us old fogies, now. He needs a young family, with children, to play with him."

My wife threw me a secret look. I shook my head no. Harold threw Pearl one his secret looks, and she nodded. Pearl and Harold looked at me and my wife. My wife looked at me. I stared off into space, oblivious.

Pearl kicked Harold. "Okay!" Harold whispered through gritted teeth.

"Do you want him, Zalman? He's a good dog, except for that grabbing your leg stuff."

My wife looked at me again, her eyes even sadder than Max's.

"No thanks, Harold. We have enough to do with three small children."

My wife continued to look at me with those sad eyes. She wiggled her eyebrows like Max, but I refused to smile and give in. The subject was changed and we left a short time later.

"Honey?" My wife snuggled up to me in bed.

"No way."

"Please?"

"No. Raising a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and a 6 year old is enough for us."

"Please?"

Those sweet brown eyes - I was in trouble. "Let's sleep on it, and see how we feel in the morning." Sometimes, a battle delayed is a battle won.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, the battle was rejoined.

"Honey?" Once again, the pathetic, searching look.

"No. I'm sorry. But no." I mustered my weakening resolve.

"No, what?" Holly, our oldest, looked at me with the same sweet brown eyes.

"Never mind. It's adult business."

"We're thinking about getting a dog." My wife said this so sweetly she thought she was fooling me. She wasn't answering a child's question, she was calling for volunteers.

"A dog! Great! I always wanted a dog!" That's number two. "Hey David and Amy, we're getting a dog!" Four against one, now.

"Wait a minute. Nobody said we were definitely getting a dog." It was raining heart break in the kitchen. I felt the need to justify myself. "In 2 weeks, he'll be just another old toy, and I'll be the one feeding and walking him."

"I'll walk him!" David, our four year old, almost had me believing him.

"Me, too." Amy, the baby, our two year old, raised her hand.

"Yeah right, Amy. He weighs 20 pounds more than you."

"Dad, please?!" Three little innocent mouths, along with three pairs of sweet brown eyes, pleaded in unison. My wife joined in on the second chorus.

And that's how we came to own Max.

The problems started soon after.

No, it wasn't the dancing with people's legs. It took a month to train him to stop that. And yes, he was great with the kids. He had the gentle spirit of a holy man. The kids pulled his tail, rode him like a horse, and dressed him like a doll, but Max never complained. He was thankful for the attention. And no, there weren't problems with house training. If we forgot to take him out, he would rather burst, than have an 'accident' inside.

The first problem, well, it was ... unusual. Amy was playing with Max underneath the kitchen table. Amy must have wondered what a dog tasted like, because she bit into Max's leg to find out. Max let out a yelp of pain, and then snapped at Amy instinctively. He caught her on the lip and drew blood. When Max heard Amy crying, and saw her bloody lip, he ran and hid under the basement stairs. When we heard Amy, and saw her bloody lip, we rushed her to the emergency room. Amy received stitches, and the surgeon assured us the scar would not show. He suggested we call the vet and ask about any special precautions.

"I'll need to see him right away!" Our normally calm vet sounded alarmed.

"Amy's a her, not a him, doc."

"I was talking about Max. Human bites are dangerous." We dragged Max out from under the basement stairs and brought him to the vet's office, where he was given a tetanus shot.

We forgave Max for biting Amy's lip, because after all, it was self-defense. Weeks later, a second problem reared up.

Max sat by the back door and howled at the top of his lungs. It was a pitiful, sad sound. I checked his coat for fleas and ticks, but there was nothing apparent. I looked at his feet, but there were no painful burrs trapped there. I called the vet, and he assured me dogs don't change into werewolves from human bites.

When I opened the back door to take out the garbage, Max sailed passed me. He ran to our six foot high stockade fence, and leaped skyward. He cleared the fence like Superdog.

We discovered our neighbor's female Doberman, Missy, was not 'fixed', and had entered her first cycle of 'heat'. Max and Missy ran around together, inside our neighbor's yard, the start of their mating ritual.

Our neighbors were outraged, and chased after Max with a stick. Max cowered in a corner of their yard. Now that doggy passion had been replaced with fear, Max could not scale the same fence to return. Instead, he remained earthbound, howling for our help. We fetched him under the angry eyes of our neighbors.

The following day, when I looked away for a second after opening the back door, I felt this breeze blow by my leg. I looked down, and saw nothing. When I looked up again, I caught a glimpse of Max's tail as it floated over the fence. We solved the problem by leashing Max every time we opened a door.

The last problem, the worst, occurred during Max's fifth year as a member of our family. We noticed he wasn't his old energetic self. He spent most of his time laying listlessly on his blanket in the corner of the kitchen. When we brought him to the vet, the tests revealed the worst - canine leukemia.

Max needed an expensive operation on his spleen, costing $800, and then required two expensive blood transfusions of $250 apiece. Money was tight in our young family.

"Do you see what your dog is costing us?" I grumbled at my wife.

"It's your dog, too." She wiped her eyes.

"We can buy another dog for this much money!" I grumbled further.

"I don't want another dog." She petted Max and reassured him.

I needed for her to say that. My heart felt the same, but it couldn't make itself heard over the grumbling of my wallet.

The medical treatments worked. Max got better. A few months later, he resumed lying in the corner of the kitchen. The relapse was worse. Max could barely get up to go out for a walk. When he couldn't stand up long enough to eat, my wife sat with him on the floor. She dipped her fingers in a bowl of milk, so he could lick the milk off and not have to raise his head.

After several frantic calls, the vet admitted he reached the limit of his treatments. He suggested it might be humane to put Max to sleep. It was unthinkable.

A week later, Max was crying constantly, vomiting, and losing control of his bowels. He could not move. The unthinkable was discussed and ratified.

I carried Max into the car with a big towel wrapped around him. The family piled in, and we drove to the vet's office in silence. My wife and children started crying when we were in the examining room. Each member of our family said good-bye to Max, and then hugged him. The vet invited the family to remain for the procedure, but I was the only one who stayed.

I sat on the examining table with Max, his head in my lap. The vet administered an injection while I petted Max and held him. Max looked up at me and wiggled his eyebrows one last time before he closed his eyes. Soon, he stopped breathing and was still. The event was peaceful, almost religious.

I cry now, thinking of Max. I cry because I miss him and that gentle, yet lustful spirit.

Except for the injection, I would like to pass from this world the way Max did - held in the arms of someone who loves me, in spite of the embarrassing faults I cannot change.